Final Report of the Hearing Officer (1)

Envelopes

(AT.39780)

(2015/C 74/04)

On 10 December 2013, the European Commission (‘Commission’) initiated proceedings pursuant to Article 11(6) of Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 (2) against Bong AB, Bong Sverige AB, Bong Belgium SA, Bong U.K. Ltd, Bong GmbH (‘Bong’); GPV France SAS, Heritage Envelopes Ltd (‘GPV’); Holdham SA (‘Hamelin’); Edlef Bartl Holding GmbH, mayer-network GmbH, Mayer-Kuvert-network GmbH (‘Mayer-Kuvert’); Printeos, SA, Tompla Sobre Expres, S.L., Tompla Scandinavia AB, Tompla France SARL, and Tompla Druckerzeugnisse Vertriebs GmbH (‘Tompla’) (together the ‘Parties’).

Following settlement discussions and settlement submissions in accordance with Article 10a(2) of Regulation (EC) No 773/2004 (3), the Commission adopted a Statement of Objections (‘SO’), on 18 November 2014, stating that the Parties had participated in a single and continuous infringement of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement.

The infringement consisted of customer allocation, price coordination and exchanges of commercially sensitive information relating to stock/catalogue and special printed (transactional and/or bespoke) envelopes of all colours, shapes and sizes. The infringement lasted from 8 October 2003 (or, for Hamelin, from 5 November 2003) until 22 April 2008.

The Parties' respective replies to the SO confirmed that the SO addressed to them reflected the contents of their settlement submissions.

Pursuant to Article 16 of Decision 2011/695/EU, I have examined whether the draft decision addressed to the Parties deals only with objections in respect of which the Parties have been afforded the opportunity of making known their views, and I have come to a positive conclusion.

In view of the above, and taking into account that the Parties have not addressed any requests or complaints to me (4), I consider that the effective exercise of procedural rights in this case has been respected.

(1)  Pursuant to Article 16 and 17 of Decision 2011/695/EU of the President of the European Commission of 13 October 2011 on the function and terms of reference of the hearing officer in certain competition proceedings (OJ L 275, 20.10.2011, p. 29) (‘Decision 2011/695/EU’).

(2)  Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty (OJ L 1, 4.1.2003, p. 1).

(3)  Commission Regulation (EC) No 773/2004 of 7 April 2004 relating to the conduct of proceedings by the Commission pursuant to Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty (OJ L 123, 27.4.2004, p. 18).

(4)  Under Article 15(2) of Decision 2011/695/EU, parties to the proceedings in cartel cases which engage in settlement discussions pursuant to Article 10a of Regulation (EC) No 773/2004 may call upon the hearing officer at any stage during the settlement procedure in order to ensure the effective exercise of their procedural rights. See also paragraph 18 of Commission Notice on the conduct of settlement procedures in view of the adoption of Decisions pursuant to Article 7 and Article 23 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 in cartel cases (OJ C 167, 2.7.2008, p. 1).